3 Tips For Getting Through The Voicemail Screen > NetSparsh

Home
>
Sales
>
3 Tips For Getting Through The Voicemail Screen

3 Tips For Getting Through The Voicemail Screen

How many times have you heard that you gotta get past the gatekeeper and get to the decision-maker to make the sale? Countless books and sales trainers have talked about this for years. Much of this advice was written for a world without voicemail.

Today's flatter organization has fewer administrative assistants for management, which means fewer live gatekeepers to screen our phone calls. The delegation of authority has also resulted in decision-makers being found at lower levels in the business than ever before. More and more decision- makers now use voicemail as their primary or even exclusive gatekeeping and screening tool.

Today I am going to discuss a few sales tips for getting through to your target in the world of voicemail hell. The first rule as always in sales is to be prepared, so you should have ready two or three major pains and visions that your product solves or enables. Make sure you have prepared at least one strong pain that your prospect is likely to identify with (pain elimination is a stronger motivator for most people than vision creation).

TIP#1 - Call At Weird Hours

People who screen their calls normally during the 8am to 6pm business hours will often pickup the phone if a call comes in at 6am or 8:30pm and they are working at their desk. With some of the insane hours people work these days, this can be very effective. They will pickup the phone generally thinking that the only person who would call at 8:30pm at night is their spouse or a friend. Who could possibly know that they are at the office at that sick hour? Try calling anytime after 6pm, and up until 8pm or 9pm when you really need to reach this person. If they are that important to the business, and that hard to reach, chances are that they work very late, very early, or both.

Getting the direct extension number of a Director or VP in a medium to large size company can seem like an impossible task. Some top people will have a direct extension that the receptionists won't give out. Instead, the best you get is a general department extension like 555-2000 (where there actually is a gatekeeper). Other times you get only the gatekeeper's voicemail (now you are really stuck in voicemail hell).

TIP #2 - The Wrong Extension Trick

Call another extension at the company randomly, say 555-2198 and ask for your target. You more than likely will get a person who is not experienced in taking outside phone calls. When the receiver of your call says you got the wrong extension, tell them that you have been getting passed around to the wrong extensions, the wrong people, the wrong voicemails, and that you are really frustrated - sound really distraught. Tell them you must return this call, but that you lost the direct number or that it was garbled on your voicemail. Ask them if they can tell you the direct number to dial so that you don't get passed around by receptionists into the wrong voicemails anymore. The key here is to sound distraught. You want them to feel a little sorry for you, so that they will want to help you. People like to help others in need. Armed with the direct extension number for your decision-maker, see Tip #1.

TIP #3 - Prepare A Commercial

You may decide that the best use of your time is to leave a message. If you want any chance of getting your call returned, you better make it good. My favorite approach is to tell a brief story to get the prospect's attention before they have a chance to realize that this is a voicemail from a salesperson and hit delete. Your story should contain a customer who had pain that your product solved. Start your story by saying "Hi Greg, Shamus Brown here. You know, XYZ company was experiencing an extreme... [fill in the blank with a strong business pain here]" Do not identify yourself as a salesperson or identify your company at the beginning of the commercial. Make the pain sound real bad - talk about the serious consequences of it. Then finish your commercial by saying "Greg, to find out how my company, ABC company, helped XYZ company eliminate this problem, give me a call at (530) 265-4099."

To leave or not to leave a message depends a lot on the nature of what you are selling and the prospect base that you are selling to. If you are selling to a small group of companies, then I would not leave a message until after being very persistent with the first two approaches. If you have a high number of potential prospects to call on, you could use the commercial approach on everyone. Be flexible and persist and you'll eventually make contact.

On a final note, the best way to get to a decision-maker is to get introduced to the person. Partnering with another company that already has an existing relationship with the prospect is very effective for leveraging in at a higher level. Selling someone else below first takes more time, but is often the way that business is done in the real world. These tips above will come in handy when you are at a loss for how to get a referral introduction.

Shamus Brown is a Professional Sales Coach and former high-tech sales pro who began his career selling for IBM. Shamus has written more than 50 articles on selling and is the creator of the popular Persuasive Selling Skills CD Audio Program. You can read more of Shamus Brown's sales tips at http://Sales-Tips.industrialEGO.com/ and you can learn more about his persuasive sales skills training at http://www.Persuasive-Sales-Skills.com/

In The News:

This RSS feed URL is deprecated, please update. New URLs can be found in the footers at https://news.google.com/news

Forbes
A High-Trust Sales Organization Starts From The Top
Forbes
Sales leaders who intentionally build trust can earn an overwhelming list of benefits: consistent profitable sales growth, improved customer satisfaction, protection from competitive threat, innovation and risk-taking, productivity, employee engagement ...

CNBC
Auto dealers see slowing sales, sparking fears that a long-expected decline is here
CNBC
A growing number of auto dealers around the country is seeing a noticeable drop in retail sales and customer traffic in showrooms, raising the possibility that a long-anticipated slowdown in auto sales has arrived. "We are definitely seeing business ...

CNBC
Philip Morris unveils new smokeless cigarettes in a bid to rev up sales
CNBC
The company is also introducing a less expensive line of expensive tobacco insert for the devices, called HEETS, in Japan as it tries to fend off competition and boost sales in key markets. iQOS, a device that heats tobacco instead of burning it, is a ...
Philip Morris aims to revive Japan sales with cheaper heat-not-burn tobaccoReuters

all 275 news articles »

Travis Perkins sales up 3.9%, sees year in line
MarketWatch
Travis Perkins PLC (TPK.LN) said Tuesday that third-quarter sales grew 3.9% and that it anticipates a full-year performance in line with market expectations. The U.K. supplier of building products said like-for-like sales growth was 4.1%. The company's ...

and more »

CNN
Wells Fargo 'misled' investors about toxic sales culture, NY Attorney General says
CNN
The bank has admitted that unrealistic sales goals led employees to open up to 3.5 million fake bank and credit card accounts without customers' knowledge. Wells Fargo workers faced relentless pressure to meet their sales targets, and were rewarded ...
Wells Fargo fined $65M for sales practices that cost investors millionsFox Business
A.G. Underwood Announces $65 Million Settlement With Wells Fargo For Misleading Investors Regarding Cross-Sell ...New York State Attorney General - NY.gov

all 81 news articles »

Charlotte Observer
Red Ventures ends sales training program, with dozens of young workers impacted
Charlotte Observer
The fast-growing Internet marketing firm just south of the state line started the two-year Sales Associate Program in January as a way to reduce turnover in its sales department, as well as groom recent college graduates for careers in sales ...

Logitech confirms FY19 outlook after Q2 sales rise
Reuters
ZURICH, Oct 23 (Reuters) - Computer accessory maker Logitech International SA confirmed its sales and earnings outlook for fiscal year 2019 after double-digit growth in gaming and video collaboration devices boosted sales growth in the second quarter ...

and more »

Bloomberg
Renault Quarterly Sales Decline on Plunging Emerging Markets
Bloomberg
The shares fell as much as 5.3 percent to the lowest in more than three years, after the French manufacturer also cut its market outlook for China, where a slowing economy has weighed on car sales. Renault sees growth of 2 percent there, versus a ...

and more »

Lockheed Martin beats profit and sales expectations, but shares slip
MarketWatch
Lockheed Martin Corp. LMT, -0.41% reported Tueday a third-quarter profit and sales that were well above expectations, but the aerospace and defense contractor's stock slipped 0.3% in premarket trade amid a broad-market selloff. Net earnings rose to $1 ...

and more »

Investopedia
Days Sales Of Inventory - DSI
Investopedia
The days sales of inventory (DSI) is a financial ratio that indicates the average time (in days) that a company takes to turn its inventory (including goods that are a work in progress) into sales. It is also called as days inventory outstanding (DIO ...

Google News

3 Tips For Getting Through The Voicemail Screen

TIP#1 - Call At Weird Hours

TIP #2 - The Wrong Extension Trick

TIP #3 - Prepare A Commercial

Sales Sales